Having done a fairly long driving stint the previous day, we were parked up only 25km away from our first of two stops for the day - the highest sand dune in Europe. Reaching 110m high it was hidden by a forest and suprisingly not really visible until you got close - not even from the parking areas.

We walked from the car park up past the tourist shops that were yet to open for the day. The foot of the sand dune was up a path through the trees.

The sand was so soft, and pale and really fine.
Kate and Darryl took the stairs up the dune - they are plastic and removable - held in place by iron poles - removable definitely the key feature with the sand dune moving 1-5 metres per year inland.

The kids opted to climb up the sand, and April figured running up a sand dune would be good pre-season training - it was a little harder than she imagined.

The view from the top was spectacular. It was too far to the water on the other side though, so we didn't get to go to the beach which was a shame. The weather is much warmer down in this part of France - a splash in the water wouldn't have been out of the question.
Sarah and Scott ran partway down and up the dune several times on one of the steeper bits. We all ran down the nice not too steep slope at the end as we left.

The tourist shops were just opening as we walked back, and they were sellling liquid sand pictures- where different coloured sand is contained with water in a frame and moves almost hypnotically to make patterns. Kate couldn't resist getting a small one - Darryl's betting we won't get it home in one piece.

We headed off again and a 12km detour due to road closures (that was following the marked detour!) and a mistaken turn off which at least took us to a petrol station had us in a not too convivial mood. Trying to get to a park for lunch got us into a section of road works (the navigator takes no responsibility for road works - they don't show up on the map!) - so we made do on the side of the road instead and then headed back to a McDonalds we'd seen as we turned off the highway for some downtime, Icecream and the use of the wifi which we're missing a lot.

Feeling a bit better we set off again and fairly quickly missed an off ramp and ended up on a tollroad heading in the wrong direction. So frustrating to have to pay for the privildge of travelling away from your intended destination! With nowhere to turn around it added another 10km to the trip, and annoyed us even more, fortunately our next stop St Emilion wasn't too far away and within 30 minutes we had arrived to the little wine village (car free) that is obviously top of the tourist list currently with barely any car parking. After two circuits of the car parking areas we managed to squeeze into a park (mirrors retracted), to a sigh of relief and walked into the small village.

Thank goodness the village was just what we needed and absolutely worth the hassles to get there. Wine shops left, right and centre, with art, craft and jewellery shops nestled in between. A slow wander, a wine tasting, a little shopping, some food and our stress levels returned to normal. We even managed to find an overnight site just 1.5km up the road at a quiet vineyard, so overall it definitely made up for the less than enjoyable travel.

April: Don't run up the sand dune it's much more fun running down.

Sarah: I enjoyed running down the sand dune. I liked the jewellery shop.

Scott: The dune was fun because your feet sink into the sand and you can slide down.